Memoirs

Ellen Terry's memoirs, first published in serial form in 1907, have been called. "One of the finest autobiographies in the English Language." The publication in 1931 of the Shaw-Terry Correspondence proved again her fresh and natural literary genius. Ellen Terry lived for twenty years after the first publication of "The Story of My Life." Her daughter, Edith Craig, who was with her constantly until she died, and Christopher St. John, who collaborated with her on the original book, have now completed her fascinating story. Critical opinion of the memoirs of actors and actresses is generally biased by an old tradition that the greatest of them are stupid outside their own art. Surely there was never a more brilliant exception to such a prejudice than Ellen Terry. In the story of her life she writes with a vividness, a grace and above all with a directness and penetration which make it one of the truly great pieces of personal literature in the language. IT has an assured place among the very few autobiographies that will always be read. Her career as an actress ended soon after the date when she ends her autobiography. But because apart from her genius as an actress, she was a remarkable and fascinating woman, her saga is incomplete without the chronicle of her last years, now so accurately supplied by the two women who perhaps knew her best of all. --- from book's dustjacket